The FA Cup produced one of its signature rosy-cheeked moments at The Rec in Aldershot on Monday: shovel in hand, centre forward Danny Hylton helped clear snow off the pitch.

Hylton is top scorer in the Cup this season with seven goals. He pushed himself on to the national radar in the last round when his hat-trick that accounted for Rotherham was swiftly followed by a red card for a raised elbow.

Thus Hylton had a three-game ban as well as the match ball and, after missing two of those three, Hylton and Aldershot knew that if Tuesday night’s League Two match against Northampton was postponed, the striker would miss the fourth-round tie at Middlesbrough on Saturday.

Prolific: Danny Hylton has scored seven goals in the FA Cup this season

Snow was still drifting across that corner of Hampshire on Tuesday night, but the Northampton game went ahead. Aldershot lost 2-1 in front of just 1,191 spectators to stay fourth bottom of League Two - but Hylton can play on Tees-side. He had done the spade work.

In his office at The Rec, Aldershot manager Dean Holdsworth spoke of why that matters. ‘Saturday’s an important game for Danny, it’s important for everybody. We had to get Northampton on,’ Holdsworth said.

‘We’ve got a striker who’s just scored a hat-trick and got sent off. So, for all the right reasons, we sent Danny down to the ground to help out. There were a good number here. We can only be thankful. We do need volunteers.

‘Danny’s performances aren’t just about scoring goals, he is a non-stop, running centre forward. Sometimes with his enthusiasm he goes over the edge.

‘He is very different from a lot of players in his position. They get pigeon-holed - they’re either a No 9 or a No 10. Danny can be a No 9½. That’s what I call it. I was a bit like that. Danny reminds me of me.’

Desperation: Hylton helped clear snow ahead of the home game against Northampton to avoid his suspension being carried into their FA Cup tie

Holdsworth, 44, scored more than 200 senior goals in a 21-year playing career that took in 16 clubs but which had at its core a decade in the Premier League with Bolton and, before that, Wimbledon - the original Crazy Gang Dons, where Holdsworth was once fined for not breaking windows.

Along the way he scored two FA Cup hat-tricks. He arrived at The Rec two years ago this month, from Newport County, and last summer turned down the chance to manage Crawley in League One.

Last season Aldershot reached the fourth round of the League Cup and drew Manchester United. Now they are in the same round of the FA Cup, having beaten Hendon, Fleetwood and Rotherham.

This shows progress - and yet there is the fact of being 20th in League Two and that crowd figure from Tuesday of 1,191, the lowest since Aldershot returned to the Football League in 2008.

Although the weather was a major factor, chairman Kris Machala talked recently of declining attendances and the effect on budgets. Cuts are being made because, if not, Machala warned, administration is a threat.

Success: The match against Northampton went ahead and, although Aldershot lost, Hylton's suspension was served

‘The chief executive here explained to me what the club were going to spend in the next two years,’ said Holdsworth after the Crawley approach.

‘At that time - I have to emphasise at that time - he said to me that the finances were going to really improve. So I felt it was a fantastic opportunity, but I also felt loyalty. I still maintain that at that time it was the right decision. We had a different chief exec then.

‘But there’s a recession on. Things change. I get on with my job.’

Attracting fans in an army town with a transient population has always been a challenge. Now Aldershot is estimated to be 10 per cent Nepalese due to an influx of Gurkha families. The Dalai Lama, no less, was at The Rec last June but Buddhism and League Two are yet to gel in Aldershot, which as a place looks nothing like comfortable Hampshire.

But Holdsworth sees hard times elsewhere at this level.

Long trip: Dean Holdsworth is preparing to take his side to the north-east to face Middlesbrough

‘I don’t think clubs should take it personally,’ he said. ‘Yes, sometimes it does feel like you against the world but football finds out if you have character - it doesn’t build your character, it finds out if you’ve got any. That’s how I look at it.

‘It finds out if you can adapt, if you can be knocked down and get back up. Not getting up is a problem. So there’s no prouder man than me to have my name on the door of this football club. I mean that. We’ve been through a lot. The rewards are going to be long term.’

Holdsworth used the word ‘character’ a few times. He had something of a Jack-the-lad image in his slick-backed prime yet, after joining Bolton for £3.5million - Middlesbrough bid, too, then - he said: ‘I worked more with the psychologists at Bolton than with anybody else.’

Blip: Promotion-chasing Middlesbrough have lost their last two Championship games

Converted, Holdsworth did a
psychology course, though he is quick to add: ‘I’m not a doctor but I
think the mind is the most powerful tool you can have when you’re going
into a battle on the pitch.

‘I
worked with a psychologist at Bolton called Mike Forde, who’s at
Chelsea now, and he and Sam Allardyce always wanted to find out about
Wimbledon, about those 20 individuals, a mad chairman and a mad manager
who had to manage all those mad people.

‘Behind
it all was a work ethic. There was a reason why the club sold one
player every year for £4m. In the core of Wimbledon players, running
through them like in a stick of rock, it said “character”.

‘I’m
just finishing my Pro-Licence with the FAW and it’s a fantastic
learning curve. But I still believe my days at Wimbledon with the Crazy
Gang are serving me well.’

Aldershot’s cold position in the table demands yet more character, so this weekend the Cup can be a warm distraction.

‘I said to the players before Rotherham to close their eyes and imagine not being in the hat; then to imagine being in it, that feeling you get, that “Ready Brek glow” around you. And they did.

‘Pulling Middlesbrough away is fantastic for us. I’ll be extremely proud to lead a team out up there. ‘It’s a reward for us. Last year we took a lot of debt off the club because we got to play Manchester United.